CONVENTION NOTEBOOK

By Celia Cohen
Grapevine Political Writer

Gov. Ruth Ann Minner was so pumped about the Delaware
Democrats' prospects, she sounded ready to run for an
encore engagement in the state Senate.

Minner spoke Saturday to about 200 party members
attending a state convention at the Dover Sheraton to
elect presidential delegates. With the months dwindling
on her second term, the last one allowed by the state
constitution, the governor did not give the impression
she expects to depart for her home in Milford, never to
be heard from again.

"I may be retiring come January in '09 from the
governor's office, but not from the Democrat Party,"
Minner said.

Whatever Minner does, she has no plans at 73 years
old to be the Delaware equivalent of John Quincy Adams,
the president who was elected afterwards to the U.S.
House of Representatives and stayed there until he
collapsed on the floor and then died.

Colin Bonini, the Republican state senator in whose
district Minner lives, is safe -- at least from her.
Harold Stafford, a Democrat who used to be Minner's
labor secretary, is running against him. The governor
wants no legislative seat, no statewide party post.

"No, no, no, no, no. I am not interested in any
jobs," Minner said in a brief interview. "Just going to
local meetings I haven't been able to go to and staying
involved."

Minner has spent 18 years in the General Assembly,
eight years as lieutenant governor and almost eight
years as governor, not to forget her time as a member of
the Democratic National Committee or a receptionist
way-back-when for Gov. Sherman Tribbitt.

With those credentials, Minner delivered the harshest
indictment yet of the state Republicans, who dreamed
about taking back the governorship by exploiting the
Democratic rivalry between Lt. Gov. John Carney and
Treasurer Jack Markell but failed so far to find a
competitive candidate even to try.

"We're blessed. We have candidates. Could you imagine
if I was standing here today saying, well, we've asked
about 20 people to run. Nobody has enough pride in the
Republican Party to be a candidate," Minner said.

Twenty people is something of an exaggeration,
at least for now. If the Republicans keep on the way
they have, it could wind up as a prediction.

He said he wanted to thank a number of leading
Democrats who gave their all for his presidential
campaign. No one was surprised as he mentioned Minner
and Tom Carper, his fellow senator, and John Daniello,
the state party chair, but then it got interesting.

"I wanted to say thank you to so many of you sitting
in this audience, and I'm not going to try to name you
all, but starting with the governor and Tom and John and
Tommy Gordon and -- and our current County Executive
Chris Coons," Biden said, the pause before mentioning
Coons relegating him to an afterthought.

It was vintage Biden to stand with Gordon, the former
county executive and police chief who fought his way
through a blistering federal investigation to come out
of it with a misdemeanor and a vow to take on Coons in a
primary. Never mind that the party establishment is with
Coons.

Biden and Gordon have known each other for years and
years, even before politics. Biden was just out of law
school when he worked at a Wilmington law firm, now
called Prickett Jones & Elliott, in the late 1960s.
Gordon was the office manager.

Biden once did something similar for Mike Harkins,
the Republican ex-secretary of state who went to jail
for living high off the Delaware River & Bay Authority
while he was the executive director. Days before Harkins
was sentenced, Biden arrived late at a St. Patrick's Day
charity dinner that Harkins helped to organize and
called out to him, "You're the reason I'm here. I'm here
for you, my friend."

Biden is fond of saying he learned about loyalty at a
young age. He tells a story about being a bus safety in
grade school and steeling himself to report his sister
who had misbehaved. His father said it was not what
Bidens do.

Biden turned in his badge, not his sister.

# # #

Statewide candidates paid $500 not to campaign at the
convention.

The party wanted them to spring for a buffet
breakfast, and they did -- Biden, Karen Hartley-Nagle
for Congress, Carney and Markell for governor, Matt Denn
and Ted Blunt for lieutenant governor, and Karen Weldin
Stewart and Gene Reed Jr. for insurance commissioner.

Then the party banned them from besieging the
convention-goers with political literature or stickers
or other overt acts of campaigning.

The candidates went along with it, although Denn
grumbled about it later on his campaign blog. He praised
the staff from Democratic state headquarters for a great
job and then groused, "I would give them all a pat on
the back, but I am not sure if that is allowed."